BALTIMORE — The price of expansion is displacement and destruction. When Johns Hopkins, the City of Baltimore, and other organizations (East Baltimore Development Inc.) saw East Baltimore, specifically the area called “Middle East," now known as Eager Park, as a blank canvas instead of a place abundant with Black families, Black businesses, and Black culture, it pressed a button labeled eminent domain.
750 Black families were displaced in the name of Hopkins, casting its giant shadow further across Charm City and beyond. The echoes of laughter, spirited conversations, brushes scrubbing marble steps, and jump ropes marking the pavement in that corridor of the city were gone forever.
Today, a Juneteenth festival is being held until 7:00 p.m. in honor of the displaced families from the Middle East. Hosted by the East Baltimore Historical Library, the celebration was packed with live choirs, children's activities, stilt walkers, pony rides, face painting, arts and crafts, a free raffle, free refreshments, community resource tents, juicing demonstrations, social justice cooperatives and workers' pop-up workshops, union group information tables, and mental health and health screenings.
